Hans Hollein in his 1968 manifesto "All is Architecture"
put forth the demand that architects should at last "stop
thinking only in materials". An echo of this utopian form
of architecture, which no-one, including himself, has ever
attempted, we may find in the present deconstructive architecture.
Its struggle against the forces of gravity, the denial of
the laws of matter, is remnant of that utopia-addicted time.
The actual message of deconstruction would be a mathematisation
of space as a partial solution of an architecture of the
media. The Cartesian cube, as a basic module of architecture,
would then still persist as a point of departure, but would
appear as an object that is now capable of being mathematically
transformed and distorted. These transformations would aim
towards a process of immaterialising static architecture,
i.e. transforming it into a dynamic system that would be
context-dependent and could be locally controlled. Architecture
would thus become a medium of perpetual change, both in
time and space, a context-directed event-world." (Peter
Weibel in "Intelligente Ambiente", Ars Electronica 1994).
Architecture has turned into an interface-technology. An interface between inhabitants and their environment. In 1989, the writer and philosopher, Vilém Flusser, suggested that in the future we would be building houses which resemble living organisms, including spinal columns. Until today, buildings have not been "viable" machines, but in the future they will quickly become viable because they are becoming more "intelligent". They will become like the skin of an organism which they will simulate through an artificial nervous system. Thus we can see the emergence of the notion of the building as a living, organic environment. What these buildings will look like - whether they will be hovering egg-shells or pulsating microbes, or even, like a central nervous system, surrounded by an electro-magnetic skin - is difficult to predict at this moment in time, and may not even be too relevant. More importantly, architecture has to realise that it has to move on from the paradigms of the mechanical to the electronic age, and that this will also have far-reaching consequences for what we conceive of as architecture today.
The technological and the biological, once regarded as opposites, are increasingly merging into hybrid constellations. This calls up the old question of the definitions of life and nature, and what their relation is to technology and culture. We can observe a shift from a world of constants to a world of variables in which the biological is placed ever closer to the technological. This shift takes place simultaneously with the growing technologisation of society.
The transport revolution of a century ago, which forms part of the overall mechanisation of society, determined many facets of the development of modern cities. In a similar way, the ultimate transport revolution, i.e. the transportation of digital information via electronic networks, will leave its mark on the development of the living and working environments of people in neo-industrial societies of the next century. The colonisation of electronic space - if we can speak about space in this context - has only just begun. We see the creation of new information spaces which have structures distinctly different from those of "the landscape" or "the city", but which still refer to the latter and are influenced by them. For instance, communities emerge in these electronic spaces not in relation to geographical conditions, but on the basis of shared interests or needs. The question of the relations between the different spaces and how they are connected to each other is crucial and refers directly to architecture because the latter deals with the structure and the moulding of space, time, and function.
The electronic spaces are expanding at an incredible speed and intersect with the spaces within which we live and work on a multitude of levels. Spaces with different characteristics and specific temporal and spatial dynamics influence each other to an increasing degree. The connections, links and gateways between them are so far mainly being developed by technologists. This amplifies the cultural conflicts which emerge around the visualisation and structuration of information.
The conference addressed the following developments:
* Is there a necessity to develop an architecture which behaves as a dynamic system within which the inhabitants, environment and architecture interact and whose functions are continuously constituted and reconstituted by the interaction between the system (architectural construction) and the user?
* The electronic spaces are expanding at an incredible speed and intersect with the spaces within which we live and work on a multitude of levels. Spaces with different characteristics and their own temporal and spatial dynamics influence each other to an increasing degree. The connections, links and gateways between them are so far mainly being developed by technologists. This amplifies the cultural conflicts which emerge around the visualisation and structuration of information. According to which strategies and values can architects design the gateways between these spaces? How will architects respond to the challenge of providing interfaces between the new environments and their human users?
* The technological and the biological, once regarded as opposites, are today increasingly merging into hybrid constellations. This calls up the old question of the definitions of life and nature, and what their relation is to technology and culture. We can observe a shift from a world of constants to a world of variables in which the biological is placed ever closer to the technological and vice versa. This shift takes place simultaneously with the growing technologisation of society. Architecture should place itself at the heart of this discussion which deals with the very basics of architecture. What will the revaluation and redefinition of the concepts of Life, Nature and Culture mean for architecture and how does this articulate itself in contemporary architecture?
When we are talking about architecture in relation to the electronic media we are dealing not only with a technical question, but also with the basic elements that define architecture.